than half a boy
and--and--! Yet he knew that he had been in earnest when he had said,
"I would keep away."

"I _know_," he had said to himself when he had been alone later; "I
_know_ that if the creature were a woman, 'twould be best that I should
keep away--'twould be best for any man to keep away from her, who was
not free to bear any suffering his passion for her might bring him. The
man who will be chief of a great house--whose actions affect the lives
of hundreds--is not free, even to let himself be put to the
torture"--and he smiled unconsciously the smile which was a little
grim.

He had seen and studied many women, and in studying them had learned to
know much of himself. He had not been so unconscious of them as he had
seemed. Such a man must meet with adventures at any time, and at a
period still tainted by the freedom of a dissolute reign, even though
'tis near twenty years past, his life, in his own despite, must contain
incidents which would reveal much to the world, if related to it.
Roxholm had met with such adventures, little as they were to his taste,
and had found at both foreign and English Courts that all women were
not non-attacking creatures, and in discovering this had learned that a
man must be a stone to resist the luring of some lovely eyes.

"I need not think myself invulnerable," he had thought often. "I can
resist because I have loved none of them. Had it chanced otherwise--God
have mercy on my soul!"

And now the current of his life for weeks seemed strangely set towards
one being. When he returned to London after seeing his parents depart
for Italy, he met in his first walk in the city streets his erst
fellow-collegian and officer, Lieutenant Thomas Tantillion, in England
on leave, who almost hallooed with joy at sight of him, shaking him by
the hand as if his arm had been a pump-handle, and then thrusting his
own arm through it, and insisting affectionately on dragging him along
the street that he might pour forth his renewed protestations of
affection and the story of his adventures.

"Never was I more glad to see a man," he said. "I'm damned if we
scapegraces have not missed thy good-looking face. Thou art a fine
fellow, Roxholm--and good-natured--ay, and modest, too--for all thy
beauty and learning. Many a man, with half thou hast, would wear grand
Court airs to a rattle-pated rascal like Tom Tantillion. Wilford does
it--and he is but a Viscount, and for all his straight nose and fine
eyes but five feet ten. Good Lord! he looks down on us who did not pass
well at the University, like a cock on a dunghill."

The Marquess laughed out heartily, having in his mind a lively picture
of my Lord Wilford, whose magnificence of bearing he knew well.

"I am coming back," Roxholm answered, "but I shall not long live a
soldier's life. 'Tis but part of what I wish to do."

"His Grace of Marlborough misses thee, I warrant," said Tom. "'Tis
often said he never loved a human thing on earth but John Churchill
and his Duchess, but I swear he warmed to thee."

"He did me honour, if 'tis true," Roxholm said, "but I am not vain
enough to believe it--gracious as he has been."

At that moment his volatile companion gave his arm a clutch and stopped
their walk as if a sudden thought had seized him.

"Where wert thou going, Roxholm?" he asked. "Lord, Lord, I was so glad
to see thee, that I forgot."

"What didst forget, Tom?"

Tom slapt his thigh hilariously. "That I had an errand on hand. A good
joke, split me, Roxholm! Come with me; I go to see the picture of a
beauty, stole by the painter, who is always drunk, and with his clothes
in pawn, and lives in a garret in Rag Lane."

He was in the highest spirits over the adventure, and would drag
Roxholm with him, telling him the story as they went. The painter, who
was plainly enough a drunken rapscallion fellow, in strolling about the
country, getting his lodging and skin full of ale, now here, now there,
by daubing Turks' Heads, Foxes and Hounds, and Pigs and Whistles, as
signs for rustic ale-houses, had seen ride by one day a young lady of
such beauty that he had made a sketch of her from memory, and finding
where she lived, had hung about in the park to get a glimpse of her
again, and having succeeded, had made her portrait and brought it back
to town, in the hope that some gentleman might be taken by its charms
and buy it.

"He hath drunk himself down to his last groat, and will let it go for a
song now," said Tom. "I would get there before any other fellow does.
Jack Wyse and Hal Langton both want it, but they have gamed their
pockets empty, and wait till necessity forces him to lower his price to
their means. But an hour since I heard that he had pawned his breeches
and lay in bed writing begging letters. So now is the time to visit
him. It was in Gloucestershire he found her--"

He stopped and turned round.

"Hang me! 'Tis the very one Bet wrote of, and I read you the letter.
Dost remember it? The vixen who clouted the Chaplain for kissing her."

"Yes," said Roxholm; "I remember."

Tom rattled on in monstrous spirits. "I have had further letters from
Bet," he said, "and each is a sermon with the beauty's sins for a text.
The women are so jealous of her that the men could not forget her if
they would, they scold so everlastingly. Lord, what a stir the hoyden
is making!"

They turned into Rag Lane presently, and 'twas dingy enough, being a
dirty, narrow place, with high black houses on either side, their
windows broken and stuffed with bits of rag and paper, their doorways
ornamented with slatternly women or sodden-faced men, while up and down
ran squalid, noisy children under the flapping pieces of poor wearing
apparel hung on lines to dry.

After some questioning they found the house the man they were in search
of lived in, and 'twas a shade dingier than the rest. They mounted a
black broken-down stairway till they reached the garret, and there
knocked at the door.

For a few moments there was no answer, but that they could hear loud
and steady snores within.

"He is sleeping it off!" said Tom, grinning, and whacked loudly on the
door's cracked panels, by which, after two or three attacks, he
evidently disturbed the sleeper, who was heard first to snort and then
to begin to grumble forth drowsy profanities.

"Let us in," cried Tom. "I bring you a patron, sleepy fool."

Then 'twas plain some one tumbled from his bed and shuffled forward to
the door, whose handle he had some difficulty in turning. But when he
got the door open, and caught sight of lace and velvet, plumed hats and
shining swords, he was not so drunk but that which the sight suggested
enlivened and awaked him. He uttered an exclamation, threw the door
wide, and stood making unsteady but humbly propitiatory bows.

"Your lordships' pardon," he said. "I was asleep and knew not that such
honour awaited me. Enter, your lordships; I pray you enter."

'Twas a little mean place with no furnishings but a broken bedstead, a
rickety chair, and an uncleanly old table on which were huddled
together a dry loaf, an empty bottle, and some poor daubs of pictures.
The painter himself was an elderly man with a blotched face, a bibulous
eye, and half unclothed, he having wrapped a dirty blanket about his
body to conceal decently his lack of nether garments.

"We come to look at your portrait of the Gloucestershire beauty," said
Tom.

"All want to look at it, my Lord," said the man, with a leer, half
servile, half cunning. "There came two young gentlemen of fashion
yesterday morning, and almost lost their wits at sight of it. Either
would have bought it, but both had had ill luck at basset for a week
and so could do no more than look, and go forth with their mouths
watering."

Tom grinned.

"You painters are all rogues who would bleed every gentleman you see,"
he said.

"We are poor fellows who find it hard to sell our wares," the artist
answered. "'Tis only such as the great Mr. Kneller who do not starve,
and lie abed because their shirts and breeches are in pawn. When a man
has a picture like to take the fancy of every young nobleman in town,
he may well ask its value."

"Let us see it," cried Tom. "To a gentleman it may seem a daub."

The man looked at him slyly.

"'Twould pay me to keep it hid here and exhibit it for a fee," he said.
"The gentlemen who were here yesterday will tell others, and they will
come and ask to look at it, and then--"

"Show it to us, sir," said Roxholm, breaking in suddenly in his deeper
voice and taking a step forward.

He had stood somewhat behind, not being at first in the mood to take
part in the conversation, having no liking for the situation. That a
young lady's portrait should be stolen from her, so to speak, and put
on sale by a drunken painter without her knowledge, annoyed him--and
the man's leering hint of its future exhibition roused his blood.

"Show it to us, sir," he said, and in his voice there was that
suggestion of command which is often in the voice of a man who has had
soldiers under him.

The but half-sober limner being addressed by him for the first time,
and for the first time looking at him directly, gave way to a slight
hiccoughing start and strove to stand more steady. 'Twas no gay
youthful rake who stood before him, but plainly a great gentleman, and
most amazing tall and stately. 'Twas not a boy come to look at a
peep-show, but might be a possible patron.

"Yes, your lordship," he stammered, bowing shakily, "I--I will bring it
forth. Your lordship will find the young lady a wonder." He went
swaying across the room, and opened a cupboard in the wall. The canvas
stood propped up within, and he took it out and brought it back to
them--keeping its face turned away.

"Let me set it in as good a light as the poor place can give," he said,
and dragged forth the rickety-legged chair that he might prop it
against its back, for the moment looking less drunk and less a vagabond
in his eagerness to do his work justice; there lurking somewhere,
perhaps, in his besotted being, that love which the artist soul feels
for the labour of its dreams.

"In sooth, my lord, 'tis a thing which should have been better done,"
he said. "I could have done the young lady's loveliness more justice,
had I but had the time. First I saw her for scarce more than a moment,
and her face so haunted me that I sketched it for my own pleasure--and
then I hung about her father's park for days, until by great fortune I
came upon her one morning standing under a tree, her dogs at her feet,
and she lost in thought--and with such eyes gazing before her--! I
stood behind a tree and did my best, trembling lest she should turn.
But no man could paint her eyes, my lord," rubbing his head ruefully;
"no man could paint them. Mr. Kneller will not--when she weds a Duke
and comes to queen it at the Court."

He had managed to keep before the picture as he spoke, and now he
stepped aside and let them behold it, glancing from one to the other.

"Damn!" cried Tom Tantillion, and sprang forward from his chair at
sight of it.

My lord Marquess made no exclamation nor spoke one word. The painter
marked how tall he stood as he remained stationary, gazing. He had
folded his arms across his big chest and seemed to have unconsciously
drawn himself to his full height. Presently he spoke to the artist,
though without withdrawing his eyes from the picture.

"'Tis no daub," he said. "For a thing done hastily 'tis done well. You
have given it spirit."

'Twas fairly said. Indeed, the poor fellow knew something of his trade,
'twas evident, and perhaps for once he had been sober, and inspired by
the fire of what he saw before him.

She stood straight with her back against a tree's trunk, her hands
behind her, her eyes gazing before. She was tall and strong as young
Diana; under the shadow of her Cavalier hat, her rich-tinted face was
in splendid gloom, it seeming gloom, not only because her hair was like
night, and her long and wide eyes black, but because in her far-off
look there was gloom's self and somewhat like a hopeless rebellious
yearning. She seemed a storm embodied in the form of woman, and yet in
her black eyes' depths--as if hid behind their darkest shadows and
unknown of by her very self--there lay the possibility of a great and
strange melting--a melting which was all woman--and woman who was
queen.

"By the Lord!" cried Tom Tantillion again, and then flushed up boyishly
and broke forth into an awkward laugh. "She is too magnificent a beauty
for an empty-pocketed rascal like me to offer to buy her. I have not
what would pay for her--and she knows it. She sets her own price upon
herself, as she stands there curling her vermilion